We've had some really positive starts to games this season. And the scores at halftime have been generally encouraging. But, something seems to happen to the offense after that and we retreat into our shells. And if you take out those meaningless TDs against the Pats, it looks very very worrying (it's pretty bad if you leave them !)
I can't understand why though ! Why do we fall apart offensively in the second half ?
Is it nerves ? A lack of fitness ? A lack of experience ?
I wonder if it might be a result of having all those young players in the side. We need players with experience of winning games, who believe in themselves and the team and know what it takes to get the job done.
Our coaching staff isn't that good, and the other team makes adjustments at half. They come out and have different plans to shut certain things down, and that's how we become anemic.
“It’s tough,” coach Gus Bradley said. “And it hurt our players. I looked at them and said, ‘We’ve got to play hard, play fast and play together.’ I felt that we did that, but we didn’t get the result we were looking for.
“Doing it consistently is the big thing. We’ve got to do it longer than we did.”
http://jacksonville.com/sports/football/...econd-half
That was from week 1 of last season... arent we getting tired of Gus Bradley's weak excuses for bad coaching?
You make a very interesting point here.
One thing that may factor in a lot is that in the first half of games we tend to get in a decent mix of running the ball whereas the run game has been largely abandoned in the second half of games.
Bortles is a frontrunner. He is able to play well when everything is going right and momentum is on his side. What he lacks is the game breaking ability to take over a game and elevate himself and the team when faced with adversity. As soon as the going gets rough or the offense begins to lose its rhythm, he wilts.
QB Blake Bortles vs. Colts Defense week 4
28 Cmp, 50 att, 298 yards, 56%cmp, 6.39 avg, 1 TD, 0INT, 73.2QBR, 78.9Rating, 3 runs for 31 yards 7.0 avg, 28 long.
He didnt play bad, he was much better in the 1st half then in the 2nd, but its a team sport it wasnt solely him that played worst in the 2nd half (but he did make worse throws).
not enough ice cream
#firebeerbellybradley
Quote:Bortles is a frontrunner. He is able to play well when everything is going right and momentum is on his side. What he lacks is the game breaking ability to take over a game and elevate himself and the team when faced with adversity. As soon as the going gets rough or the offense begins to lose its rhythm, he wilts.
FOH with this hyperbole. For those of us who have actually watched this team, every single time we are in position to win a game at the end, Bortles has put us in position to win it. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Yes there have been games where he's taken us out of it early after a pick/pick 6, but if the game is tied and it's on him to drive us down the field for a game winning field goal, he has consistently delivered. He did it in college. He does it here. He does not wilt under pressure dude. The offense always comes out flat in the second half of game FACTS. You think they don't face adversity in the first halves of games? How about when Dolphins drive down the field and even the score up in the first half two weeks ago. What does Bortles do? He comes right back and score, and does it again. Dumb penalties on the offensive line and drops by the receivers have plagued this offense in the second half of games all season. I do not just watch the live broadcast and rant on this forum off of memory after that like you clearly do, and I don't want to hear any BS that you don't because I can tell.
I always rewatch the games, sometime 4 times during the week, to reconfirm what I saw. I sometimes walked away from games thinking Bortles sucked then when I went back and watched it's actually everything around him that sucks. Is he perfect? No, but he has played more than good enough this season for us to be 3-1 right now. Consistent penalties on the O-Line at the worst times, drops by the receivers at the worst times, and complete whiffs in the run game twice on the same series constantly is the real killer of this offense, not Bortles. If the O-Line doesn't draw penalties all second half every week and the run doesn't generate -2 yards half the time to constantly put us in 3rd and long then Bortles would probably have AT LEAST 2 more TDs. But those things take the offense completely out of rhythm and then when Bortles does make mistakes it looks significantly worse because of how points were not put on the board on their previous possession due to factors outside of his control.
When Bortles is the real assassin of this offense then I will call him out on it, and I've even said he sucked in recent weeks before rewatching games. But that is not the case, and putting anywhere near the majority of the blame for this offense's problems on him is not right at all. If Bortles were playing for the Cardinals the media would be claiming he's the second coming GUARANTEE IT.
Quote:Does anybody know the stats of how many 2nd half points we have scored under Bradley's tutelage?
Looking at box scores we have 300 first half scores to 258 second half scores (Including this season).
If we just count the 4th quarter as garbage time for certain blowout games (numbers in parenthesis are the net points they have over us not their total points, entering into the 4th, the numbers in brackets are what we scored in the 4th)
'13 Seattle (28) [7]
'13 Colts (23) [7]
'14 Colts (27) [14]
'14 Cowboys (24) [10]
'15 Patriots (27) [7]
We've scored 45 points in garbage time, meaning we have 213 non garbage time 2nd half points scored.
We've been shut out twice before the half
'13 Seahawks
'14 Colts
We've been shut out 10 times after the half
'13 Chiefs
'13 Colts
'13 Cardinals
'14 Eagles
'14 Chargers
'14 Colts
'14 Texans
'14 Ravens
'15 Panthers
'15 Colts
Our Highest Output in the 1st Half was 20 points against the '13 Browns
Our Highest Output in the 2nd half was 22 points against the '14 Giants (This is also the most overall for any half, 1st or 2nd)
Jaguars DE Tyson Alualu says Jaguars want to own the division but blew their chance to do it today - source ESPN writer Mike DiRocco
---------------------------------
The Jaguars Head Coach Gus Bradley was given three years to put out a half decent product on the field and to simply defeat AFC South opponents nothing else was really needed, he was given a gift horse this week with Andrew Luck being injured and not able to play. The Colts struggled to even get one win prior to playing the Jaguars this week, yet despite the fumble & turnover on downs the Jaguars could not take advantage of the many opportunities to win in this game.
It still stings the loss to the Panthers was subdued by the Dolphins win, the blow out of the Patriots we thought would be healed by defeating the Colts on the road but instead we have to read a thousand fire Myers threads.
I think it is silly to entertain the thought of firing GM Dave Caldwell or HC Gus Bradley this early in the season, but it is a real possibility for them both to be fired at the end of it.
This week is a must win against a very easy team to beat the Tampa Bay Bucs. If they find a way to lose this game, then just out of pure emotion reasons only I could see the owner firing the HC.
His accuracy just goes downhill in the 2nd half. It may be due to the defense adjusting but he looks confused and erratic
I wonder if there is a way to confuse Bortles into thinking that the game starts in the 2nd half and the first half is after halftime?
I hope I didn't confuse anyone out there.
Quote:His accuracy just goes downhill in the 2nd half. It may be due to the defense adjusting but he looks confused and erratic
Bingo. Defenses adjust
I'm not that discouraged by this, specifically - it tells me the talent and the ability is there. He's technically only playing game 17 of his career - he needs to do better but the improvement is there.
What remains to be seen is if Bortles can get to the next level - that being the ability to re-adjust to defenses after they've adjusted to him. That is the next step of the process and if he can get there, we will at least have ONE skill position we're set at.
Quote:![[Image: Q6lh8vQ.png]](http://i.imgur.com/Q6lh8vQ.png)
The difference is crazy. If Bortles played in the second half like he does in the first he'd be one of the best QBs in the league. This has to be coaching. There are no offensive adjustment being made to match the opposing team's defense adjustments. Once they take away the initial game plan the offense falls off a cliff. No player just falls off a cliff every single game after the first half ends. It would be different if it were just an aberration or happened in 2 out of the 4 games, then we could just chalk it up to young QB inconsistencies. But it's happened in every single game this season.
We already know this, see my thread about no halftime adjustments.
Quote:Bortles is a frontrunner. He is able to play well when everything is going right and momentum is on his side. What he lacks is the game breaking ability to take over a game and elevate himself and the team when faced with adversity. As soon as the going gets rough or the offense begins to lose its rhythm, he wilts.
Matt Ryan syndrome
I couldn't agree more Olsen's plays are good and Blake is coming along nicely (on pace for 4000 yards 24 tds and 16 ints). But yesterday is a perfect example. The clots couldn't run the ball all day but they kept at it and in the fourth and o.t it was the difference for them.
We ran the ball more than the clots so I'm not sure about that. Blake has improved but I agree with him just not able to take over the game. He has shown this ability in college now we need him to do it in the pros. He's done it a couple of times but the good and great qbs do it all the time. Brady has won super bowls because he has the ability to drive down and win it at the end. That clots game tells me that he hasn't quite mastered this ability yet. A good qb blows them out of the water. And if they don't then at the end of the game they drive down and score the TD.
I am really pulling for him. Looking back at it the kicker should have made those kicks. Blake got us in position to win but my issue is that it should have never been that close to begin with. I need him to realize when Andrew Luck is not playing you play aggressive get their defense down a couple score and coast the rest of the game. You are supposed to bury a team like the one we faced yesterday. That loss is more about the clots taking advantage of our inability to adequately score than it was about the kicker missing field goals.
They played it to the T in the situation they were in; keep it close and try to pull it out in the end. We should have never been in that spot with them and that's what worries me. Hopefully it's just because we are still a young team.
One thing that I have noticed about the play calling is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of short routes over the middle of the field. everything seems to be to the outside. The goal line drive where they had to kick a field goal there was no one going over the middle of the field. Blake had to throw a jump ball in the back corner of the end zone. It seems like when there is a play in the middle of the field it is 20 yards past the line of scrimmage. Send clay harbor or T.J. yeldon short and across the middle! Tom Brady has made a career out of short passes that turn into 10-20 yarders. Maybe that would help our young QB.